Howard Kang

In dramatic form, be it monologue, dialogue or full theatrical scene, the author cannot step into the action to comment or interpret for us, as he can in a novel. We must draw our own conclusions from what we see and hear, and this makes for powerful effects, as a character reveals him- or herself to us by what he or she says or does. In the monologue, â€Å"My Last Duchess† Browning misleads us with great skill before we realize that we are listening to a criminal lunatic. The dramatic effect lies in the surprise we feel as the truth finally emerges. In Act IV, scene iii of Othello there is again an agonizing irony for the viewer, who knows more than Desdemona and is of course impotent to help her. Shakespeare works like a dentist without an anesthetic, and the pain of the audience comes from the unbearable innocence of the doomed Desdemona, who is surely something like the Duchess in Browning’s poem, helpless and bewildered in the face of the murderous insanity of her husband. The Duke in Browning’s â€Å"My Last Duchess† sounds so sane! But what makes him more eerie is that he is wonderfully gracious and articulate – â€Å"Will’t please you sit and look at her? † (5). As he tells his story he seems to weigh his words with great caution, as if he is quite free of the distorting power of anger or any other passion, and is keen to avoid any unfairness in his judgment: â€Å"She had / A heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad† (21-2), â€Å"†¦ but thanked / Somehow – I know not how – as if she ranked†¦ † (31-2). He never raises his voice, and speaks with a measured confidence that quite takes us in. At first we might be tempted to believe that his attitudes are reasonable: â€Å"Sir, ‘twas not / her husband’s presence only, called that spot / Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek† (13-15). His manner is restrained even as he hints at her infidelity. The painter flattered her about her appearance, as of course he would, being a Renaissance artist and totally dependent on patronage, but she was charmed by it – foolishly, the Duke suggests. â€Å"She liked whate’er / She looked on† (23-24). She was delighted by the beauty of the sunset, and the little tribute from the man who gave her the cherries, just as much as â€Å"My favor at her breast† (25). What he seems to be objecting to is her failure to be properly selective and aristocratic in her tastes. This is a rather extreme sort of snobbery, but perhaps not unprecedented; we may not find it attractive, but we may accept it as a feature of a proud man. In Browning’s My Last Duchess, the murder is implied. It is not described in explicit terms as in Othello. In the lines, â€Å"Paint/Must never hope to reproduce the faint /Half-flush that dies along her throat†, the speaker adores the ‘faint half-flush’ on his wife’s face that no paint could re-add and at the same time leaves a slight hint that she had been throttled to death. The intelligent monologue is enough to make the point overt and covert at the same time. All the time, Browning is luring us up the garden path. We begin to detect the problem. The Duke is immensely proud, a man of great heritage, while she is free of snobbery, charmed by the delights of the world and human kindness, and genuinely innocent. (Infidelity does not seem to be the Duke’s concern presently) Then we begin to see how pathologically proud and arrogant he really is. Even had you skill / In speech – (which I have not)† (35-36), (he lies, of course) to explain your objection to her behavior – which is clearly quite â€Å"normal† – it would involve â€Å"stooping, and I choose / Never to stoop† (42-3). So, rather than speak to her about his dissatisfaction, which would involve impossible condescension by him, he chose to solve the problem rather more radically: â€Å"This grew; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped altogetherà ¢â‚¬  (45-6). It takes a moment for us to register what he did, so unbelievable is it and so evasively phrased. She thanked men,—good; but thanked /Somehow†¦. I know not how †¦. as if she ranked /My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name /With anybody’s gift,†- the last part of the speech clearly brings forth the envy rankling in the speaker’s heart! The unbending pride of the Duke comes out through the turns of phrases of this part of this long monologue, â€Å"†¦. and if she let/Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set/Her wits to yours ,forsooth and made excuse,/-E’en then would be some stooping and I choose/Never to stoop. The Duke can hardly ‘chose to stoop’to give in to the childish demeanors of his beautiful wife. Again, jealousy seems to be prevalent in the tone of these words: â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Oh, Sir, she smiled no doubt, /Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without /much the same smile? † Then having confessed to murder, or, rather, boasted of it, he continues his negotiations for his next Duch ess, celebrating, incidentally, one of his favorite art works, â€Å"Neptune†¦ Taming a sea-horse† (54-5), the very image of the brutal control that he has himself exerted over his innocent last Duchess. The willow scene from Othello works differently, of course, because it is a dialogue, though it is in the inner workings of Desdemona’s mind that the dramatic form is revealed here, just as much as is the case in Browning’s poem There is an almost intolerable pathos about this scene because Desdemona is so helpless. She has a good idea of what is going to happen – â€Å"If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me / In one of those same sheets† (24-5) and is impotent in the face of her fate. There seems to be no defence against the ruthless execution of Othello’s enraged will. She is in a sort of trance; a hypnosis of shock. All she can do is wait for the end, and the pathetic simplicity of her reflections here is the sign of a wounded spirit in retreat from reality. The tragic atmosphere is given additional poignancy by the occasional interruption of the everyday details of â€Å"undressing for bed†, the habitual continuing of everyday life because there is nothing else to do in the face of the worst – â€Å"Prithee unpin me† (21). She continues to pretend that this is just an ordinary night: â€Å"This Lodovico is a proper man† (35), not a comparison of Othello with her country forms, but a pathetic attempt at gossip. But her real thoughts emerge in the obsession with the willow song, which she cannot resist. It is the perfect mirror of her own fortune: â€Å"And she died singing it; that song tonight / Will not go from my mind† (30-1). Like a detail from a psychoanalyst’s casebook comes the unprompted line in the song that gives away the deepest thoughts of the wailing victim. Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve, — Nay, that’s not next. Hark! Who’s that knocks? –It is the wind. † (51-3) She corrects herself, but the absolute terror of realisation goes through her. Compared with Desdemona’s helplessness in the face of the corruption of Othello, Emilia’s jokes have an immensely remedial health. It is not a criticism of Desdemona, but it is a firm placing of trust in a human being by Shakespeare. In Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor can hardly be blamed for his rash decision of murdering Desdemona, who had been black-painted by his ‘honest Iago’ and it was Iago again who had sown the seeds of jealousy in his mind. Desdemona pleaded her innocence at last and asked to call for Cassius but Othello ran berserk maddened by sexual jealousy. Othello could hardly be blamed for his attitude, as he was a Moor and unfamiliar with the ways and manners of the Venetian culture. Naturally, he fell victim to Iago’s insinuations and committed the murder of his beautiful wife, Desdemona, who was actually, innocence epitomized. In Act IV, sc ii, Othello in reply to Desdemona’s pleading innocence disgustingly cried out, â€Å"O Desdemona, away! away! away! † Desdemona, being totally unaware of the handkerchief she had lost tried to reason with her husband, â€Å"Am I the motive of these tears my Lord? † It might have been possible that Othello could have turned deaf ears to Iago’s vitriolic comments or aspersions cast on Desdemona, but as he was new to their society and culture, it became easy for Iago to set him against his wife, who was a paragon of beauty. By way of rejoinder, when Othello speaks out, â€Å"Had it pleased Heaven/To try me with affliction; had they rained/All kinds of sores and shame on my bare head/Steeped me in poverty to the very lips/Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes/I should have found in some place of my soul/A drop of patience†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. †and at last turns to the question of â€Å"complexion†, â€Å"Turn thy complexion thee.. †¦Ay there look as grim as hell! †, we find Othello a dejected, frustrated , lost soul feeling small for being a Black Moor who was alien to the Venetian culture! The complex of Culture and Identity assails him, no doubt! Othello decided to put an end to the life of his unfaithful wife at last and as he uttered the words in Act V, Sc ii, â€Å"Yet, I’ll not shed her blood; /Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow/And smooth as monumental alabaster/Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men†, Did he not sound the same as the Duke of My Last Duchess who had been driven mad by sexual jealousy? The murder could not be justified, but, Othello was quite a better lover and a more compassionate person than the Duke. He needed evidence to prove Desdemona’s betrayal; he had to fight immensely with his own conscience to come to the decision of murder. As a person, the Duke was cold-blooded, but Othello was emotional and irrational at he same time. If this had not been so, â€Å"†¦I will kill thee, / And love thee after. One more and this the last. /So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep/ But they are cruel tears; this sorrow’s heavenly; /IT STRIKES WHERE IT DOTH LOVE,† could he utter such words? The Duke of My Last Duchess was never so overpowered with emotions to give a slight indication of goodness that is if he had any. In Act V, sc i, Othello is making his mind up to vent his rage upon Desdemona. Here he again finds enough reason to slaughter Desdemona. On hearing the footsteps of Cassius, he blurt forth, â€Å"’Tis he;-O brave Iago, honest and just†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦minion your dear lies dead/and your unblest fate hies, strumpet I come† Till Lines 31 of Act V Sc ii, we find Othello raving and railing on about the murder of Desdemona. Othello seemed to give a chance to Desdemona to prove her innocence by saying, â€Å"If you bethink yourself of any crime/Unreconciled as yet heaven and grace /Solicit for it straight. † But he meant the murder and perpetrated it! In Act III, Sc iii, when Othello grows in a blind rage is provoked by â€Å"honest Iago’s† words, he finds every reason to kill Unfaithful Desdemona and utters, â€Å"Monstrous, monstrous!! † On hearing Cassio’s dream-mutterings on his secret affair with Desdemona, Othello got green with jealousy and anger. He saw betrayal from the cruelest possible angle. He found it terribly monstrous to be treated like that. When Emilia came talking of Desdemona’s profound love for her husband after she had been murdered, Othello lost his emotional balance and blurted, â€Å"O cursed slave! /Whip me ye devils/From the possession of this heavenly sight/Blow me about in the winds, roast me in sulphur/Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire†¦O Desdemona, Desdemona, DEAD!! †[Act V, Scii] Could we ever expect the Duke speaking in such touchy, sentimental terms after committing the murder? No, never!!!

Optimism and Robinson Crusoe

â€Å"A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty† Winston Churchill From the time human were born, they have been facing up with difficulty, every time, everywhere, and never miss anyone. Our races have overcome and will overcome abundant problems, no matter how complex they were or they will be. And, very natural, it is the optimism that leads us from victory to victory, like Churchill had said; make us see the light, even the slightest, in the darkness. We always see the just how optimism has assisted we human, in term of both literature, in the novel Robinson Crusoe, and the history of medical science. Sometimes, being optimistic is the best thing people can do, which is shown clearly in Robinson Crusoe. The protagonist, Robinson, is lost on an island. He himself with manages to survive and even make his life on the island become more comfortable. He has never given up hopes or lost his optimism, always thinks that one day he will come back home. Not once does he succumb to the fate and be depressed like many other would be in that case. His optimism and his indefatigable make his hope finally be fulfilled; he is able get back to his country after 28 years on the island in the sea. If he was not sanguine about his life and just believed hopelessly that he would die in that island, he would not be able to success. This fact strongly substantiates how optimism can change our life even in the most trying circumstance. Provided that we keep being optimistic and try our best, we can overcome any problems in life. Another case when optimism plays an essential role is in medical science, where we day to day struggle with many deadly diseases, one of which is AIDS. AIDS, which has infected million of people and caused a lot of death, is one of our biggest problems in the 21st century. There was once it is believed that this disease is incapable of being cured but the scientist did not lose there will. They had made indefatigable effort to scrutinize AIDS and they are sanguine that one day in the future AIDS will be curable. Time passed by and this notion has been gradually proven. Today, many breakthroughs in science have shed light on AIDS, thought there are not medicine that can cure AIDS, it has been strongly believed that in the near future, when we fully understand AIDS, it will be curable. People, with optimism can overcome any things in our life; which has been proven through the history of our race. It is optimism which is the most important factor of any victories.

TerraCog

Terracotta management failed to respond to competition in its market. Although competitor introduced a new GAPS with satellite imagery to the market, Terracotta team dismissed the threat and decided not to take a responsive action. However, quickly the new GAPS succeed and gained a significant market share. Eventually, Terracotta president decided to pursue a development of a directly competing product, and named the project Aerial. Unfortunately, the projected high costs of this project questioned its profitability and doubt its wisdom.The key managers of the company were not able to decide whether to execute the project or not, and Emma Richardson, the new executive vice-president, needed to push the group toward a decision. The analysis we have done indicates that Terracotta case is an outcome of two major problems. The first problem is the existence of a poor decision making process, and the second is the lack of departmental cooperation and harmony. Alternative Courses of Action : We believe that Richardson should postpone the launch of Aerial, and focus on creating a more efficient decision making process and increasing departmental cooperation.Since time is crucial in this case, we see a need to decrease the time of decision making process and re-defining communication channels between the departments. We also argue that the size of this team as well as the fact that the teammates came from four different departments created complex communication channels that slowed down decision making. In this case, small groups can undertake better the urgent tasks. Hence, we think that Richardson should break the complex process of launching a new product into micro-processes.We believe that by brainstorming with the heads of every department separately, defining criteria and performance tankards, and listening to each team's requirements and reservations, Richardson will be able to clarify for the teams their importance to the company and motivate them to act toward the company's goal. Commitment to a common goal is more easily achieved if the number of team members is small (Essentials for an Effective Team, To keep the work on track and to increase departmental cooperation, 2006).Richardson should conduct update meetings every other week with all the departments' heads. The agenda of these wide department meetings should be clear and exclude decisions making. The different decisions should be made within smaller groups that include only the relevant teams. To increase harmony among the departments, Richardson can open department wide meetings with a short speech about similar past experiences of the company to remind the teams how they worked well together and performed successfully when they cooperated.Recalling past experiences may increase sense of belonging and help to put the big picture in mind before discussing current issues. Moreover, Richardson can invite the teams' mangers to have lunch together before department wide meetings. So cializing with each other right before getting to business can cool things down, ease the tension, and increase departmental cooperation. We believe that if the heads of the different departments will understand the importance and the needs of other departments, working together will become easier and more efficient.Another way to increase departmental cooperation is by sharing information on the processes each department went through. For example, while discussing the price of a new product, Tony could provide specific details regarding production's costs to explain why further lowering of costs is impossible. While this alternative might be time consuming, sharing information can help the teams to understand better the different points of view of the different departments. Recommended Course of Action: We believe that a combination of the alternatives above would be the best way to address the situation in this case.First, we recommend postponing the launch of the current prototyp e. Launching Aerial on its current form will damage the company's reputation and can lead the company to a big loss. We assume that if Aerial wont provide its users a significant advantage, customers wouldn't pay more than the Bird's price to buy it. Second, in order to accelerate the decision making process, Richardson should redesign the current communication channels in the company. Decisions need to be made in smaller teams, and wide department meetings need to be designated for updates only.Third, to increase departmental cooperation and harmony, Richardson should establish a process of sharing information between the departments. Furthermore, structuring time for socializing can ease the stress and increase harmony among the departments. We believe that this alternative course of action will lead to minimum damage in Terracotta position, ND allow the company to improve its productivity and ability to respond faster to competition in the future. Implementation: First, Richardso n should invite all the people who were present in the last two meetings to announce her decision.This meeting should be friendly and short, and most important, clear and motivating. Richardson should open the meeting with demonstrating an appreciation for the hard work done by all the departments. Then, the announcement of her decision to postpone the launch of Aerial should be followed by a short explanation about the upcoming changes: From now on, once a week, every department should email a rife description of the progress they made at the past week to the entire company.This weekly update emails will enable an efficient way to share information between the departments. In addition, wide department meetings will take place every other week, and once a month these meetings will include a friendly lunch prior to the meeting. After the meeting, Richardson should meet with the heads of design and development department. In this meeting, they need to agree and define the requirements to develop a product that is superior to the Birds, on minimum costs and time, and draw a realistic schedule to move forward.Now, when the new product is in its first stages of creation, and there is a general idea of what specifications and characteristics it will have, as well as an expected time for launching, Richardson should meet with the UP of Sales, to create marketing plan for the new product. The production team will work alone on costs estimating for the new product, and the sales team in consultation with finance department will determine a pricing and develop a â€Å"go- to market† plan. Moreover, Richardson should set clear limits to the continuance of commitment to the project for every department.Determining what criteria and performance standards Justify continued investment in the project can help the team avoid escalation of commitment (Team Decision Making Pitfalls and Solutions, n. D). Whenever disagreements on to what level the teams should commit to a specific task will arose, they could refer to the performance's standards and make a decision accordingly. The process will be managed by Richardson from the top, and the heads of every department will make decisions that are relevant to their departments' areas of knowledge and responsibility, and report to Richardson, who ill manage the whole process. TerraCog Terracotta management failed to respond to competition in its market. Although competitor introduced a new GAPS with satellite imagery to the market, Terracotta team dismissed the threat and decided not to take a responsive action. However, quickly the new GAPS succeed and gained a significant market share. Eventually, Terracotta president decided to pursue a development of a directly competing product, and named the project Aerial. Unfortunately, the projected high costs of this project questioned its profitability and doubt its wisdom.The key managers of the company were not able to decide whether to execute the project or not, and Emma Richardson, the new executive vice-president, needed to push the group toward a decision. The analysis we have done indicates that Terracotta case is an outcome of two major problems. The first problem is the existence of a poor decision making process, and the second is the lack of departmental cooperation and harmony. Alternative Courses of Action : We believe that Richardson should postpone the launch of Aerial, and focus on creating a more efficient decision making process and increasing departmental cooperation.Since time is crucial in this case, we see a need to decrease the time of decision making process and re-defining communication channels between the departments. We also argue that the size of this team as well as the fact that the teammates came from four different departments created complex communication channels that slowed down decision making. In this case, small groups can undertake better the urgent tasks. Hence, we think that Richardson should break the complex process of launching a new product into micro-processes.We believe that by brainstorming with the heads of every department separately, defining criteria and performance tankards, and listening to each team's requirements and reservations, Richardson will be able to clarify for the teams their importance to the company and motivate them to act toward the company's goal. Commitment to a common goal is more easily achieved if the number of team members is small (Essentials for an Effective Team, To keep the work on track and to increase departmental cooperation, 2006).Richardson should conduct update meetings every other week with all the departments' heads. The agenda of these wide department meetings should be clear and exclude decisions making. The different decisions should be made within smaller groups that include only the relevant teams. To increase harmony among the departments, Richardson can open department wide meetings with a short speech about similar past experiences of the company to remind the teams how they worked well together and performed successfully when they cooperated.Recalling past experiences may increase sense of belonging and help to put the big picture in mind before discussing current issues. Moreover, Richardson can invite the teams' mangers to have lunch together before department wide meetings. So cializing with each other right before getting to business can cool things down, ease the tension, and increase departmental cooperation. We believe that if the heads of the different departments will understand the importance and the needs of other departments, working together will become easier and more efficient.Another way to increase departmental cooperation is by sharing information on the processes each department went through. For example, while discussing the price of a new product, Tony could provide specific details regarding production's costs to explain why further lowering of costs is impossible. While this alternative might be time consuming, sharing information can help the teams to understand better the different points of view of the different departments. Recommended Course of Action: We believe that a combination of the alternatives above would be the best way to address the situation in this case.First, we recommend postponing the launch of the current prototyp e. Launching Aerial on its current form will damage the company's reputation and can lead the company to a big loss. We assume that if Aerial wont provide its users a significant advantage, customers wouldn't pay more than the Bird's price to buy it. Second, in order to accelerate the decision making process, Richardson should redesign the current communication channels in the company. Decisions need to be made in smaller teams, and wide department meetings need to be designated for updates only.Third, to increase departmental cooperation and harmony, Richardson should establish a process of sharing information between the departments. Furthermore, structuring time for socializing can ease the stress and increase harmony among the departments. We believe that this alternative course of action will lead to minimum damage in Terracotta position, ND allow the company to improve its productivity and ability to respond faster to competition in the future. Implementation: First, Richardso n should invite all the people who were present in the last two meetings to announce her decision.This meeting should be friendly and short, and most important, clear and motivating. Richardson should open the meeting with demonstrating an appreciation for the hard work done by all the departments. Then, the announcement of her decision to postpone the launch of Aerial should be followed by a short explanation about the upcoming changes: From now on, once a week, every department should email a rife description of the progress they made at the past week to the entire company.This weekly update emails will enable an efficient way to share information between the departments. In addition, wide department meetings will take place every other week, and once a month these meetings will include a friendly lunch prior to the meeting. After the meeting, Richardson should meet with the heads of design and development department. In this meeting, they need to agree and define the requirements to develop a product that is superior to the Birds, on minimum costs and time, and draw a realistic schedule to move forward.Now, when the new product is in its first stages of creation, and there is a general idea of what specifications and characteristics it will have, as well as an expected time for launching, Richardson should meet with the UP of Sales, to create marketing plan for the new product. The production team will work alone on costs estimating for the new product, and the sales team in consultation with finance department will determine a pricing and develop a â€Å"go- to market† plan. Moreover, Richardson should set clear limits to the continuance of commitment to the project for every department.Determining what criteria and performance standards Justify continued investment in the project can help the team avoid escalation of commitment (Team Decision Making Pitfalls and Solutions, n. D). Whenever disagreements on to what level the teams should commit to a specific task will arose, they could refer to the performance's standards and make a decision accordingly. The process will be managed by Richardson from the top, and the heads of every department will make decisions that are relevant to their departments' areas of knowledge and responsibility, and report to Richardson, who ill manage the whole process.

The impact of implementation of IFRS on UK companies. a case study of Dissertation

The impact of implementation of IFRS on UK companies. a case study of M&S - Dissertation Example The published papers with reference to the implementation by the accounting bodies, institutions and the journals have been analyzed for this purpose. In addition to the company specific impact of implementation of IFRS, the effect of changes in the accounting policies has also been analyzed generally in a comprehensive manner. Adoption of the fair value model of accounting as against the established traditional accounting practices based on the historic cost method would be counterproductive especially in the case of intangible or financial assets with huge fluctuations in valuations on day to day basis. It is concluded that as the implementation of IFRS results into inflation of profits, the predominant causes of such overstatement shall be dealt with to avoid its negative effects on the corporate governance through national debate. Contents Page Introduction Research Aim Research Objectives Terms of Reference Background Literature Review Benefits of harmonisation or Reasons underl ying the adoption of IFRS in the UK and Europe Implications for UK Companies adopting IFRS The first time adoption of IFRS Research Methodology Analysis, Discussion and Findings Disclosure under IFRS Fair valuation Conclusions/Recommendations References Appendices Introduction International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) of the IASB has issued interpretations for this purpose. International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) are considered a ‘principles-based’ set of standards establishing broad based rules rather than dictating specific treatments. All major countries have been moving towards IFRS regime and the implementations in different countries are at different stages. Many national and international institutions require public companies listed in the stock exchanges, banks and insurance companies to adopt IFRS for statu tory reports. In the near future, most of the companies and their subsidiaries worldwide are expected to be covered under IFRS. Apart from the listing requirements or statutory reporting, financial institutions lending to these companies, government bodies and national and international corporations stipulate compliance with IFRS to fulfill their obligations in respect of financial reporting for the purpose of approvals or licensing. Ian D Wright, Chairman of Financial Reporting Committee of the Institute of the Chartered Accounts of England and Wales said in 2002: "The Institute has supported the European Commission through a lengthy political process to see this Regulation come into effect because we believe passionately in the benefits to business of truly international accounting standards." (ICAEW, 2011) Convergence in financial reporting hinges on the consistency between the country accounting standards and IAS. In March 2004, the ASB issued a ‘Strategy for Convergence o f UK GAAP with IAS’. (CIMA, 2006) It is in this backdrop, the paper seeks to study and analyze the issues related to the impact of implementation of IFRS on UK companies and with reference to M&S in respect of the following: Research Questions 1. What are the impacts of implementation of IFRS generally and on statement of profits? 2. What are the impacts of the disclosure under IFRS? 3. What is the impact of adoption of value model as against the historic cost model in the implementation of

LOG503 Case Assign Process Improvement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

LOG503 Case Assign Process Improvement - Essay Example The varied elements of supply chain that are integrally related with and are also facilitated by world class logistics as well as transportation facilities include warehousing, processes of ordering and customer service, inventory control and administrative costs. According to Gilmore (2002), organizations have become very circumspective in their approaches with regard to handling the logistic process while outsourcing products and services in the global circuit in order to earn considerable profits. They have also started to be quite cautious so that any undue cost is not incurred within the logistics and transportation process. In this context, it can also be stated that effective distribution of goods through channelizing has assisted organizations in gaining competitive advantage and managing distribution functions efficiently (Zeng & Rossetti, 2003). Importance of Process Improvement in Achieving Transportation Excellence Process improvement is an effective measure adopted by or ganizations for attaining efficient customer services at minimum costs. It is a strategy which is substantially used by various organizations for transportation and logistics process of goods through Transport Management Solutions. Organizations with the application of process management equipments and techniques can vigorously manage the transportation of products in their desired destinations. It also assists in decreasing costs and providing greater flexibility in the process of distribution of products at the centers from the manufacturers in the national and international markets. The process improvement strategy consists of certain tools such as value- stream mapping and 5S. The tools of value-stream mapping is designed for mapping an end to end process, with an objective of abolishing all the non-value added actions as well as ensuring a removal of waste materials. The incorporation of process improvement techniques and tools in transportation system would enable organization s to control and initiate a competitive advantage by supplying quality products at a much reduced costs to distribution centers. These centers can then sell those products to the customers conveniently which will in turn enable to fulfill their demands on time. Contextually, the manufacturers are benefitted with the standardization with regard to process improvement methods through which different activities of supply chain process can be effectively handled. The various improvement tools and techniques such as value-stream mapping, Androns and 5S help in effective planning and collaborative forecasting. Kaizen, another process improvement technique, helps in eliminating the amount of waste or excess in the inventory as well as to supply the required products to the extensive marketplace in a stipulated time period to satisfy customers by a large extent. This results in ascertaining greater productivity and sales in organizations for earning profitability. Just- In –Time proc ess also entails the removal of waste materials from inventories along with supplying them to their desired destinations from various operational sites. The process also imposes certain challenges in distributing products to warehouses with

Romance in Childless Heterosexual Couples in America Dissertation

Romance in Childless Heterosexual Couples in America - Dissertation Example The quality of marriages among childless heterosexual couples has generally declined over the past few decades. Even in marriages that do last beyond a decade, it is important that the quality of the marriage is sufficiently high that the couple is content with their lives. This study examines the presence of opposing positive factors that contribute towards the consolidation of heterosexual marriages between couples. These may be coping strategies to deal with the pressures of childlessness, but more specifically, a set of behaviors that maintain viability in a marriage even after a heterosexual married couple has been together for many years. A qualitative investigation will be conducted primarily using interviews to examine how and why childless heterosexual couples in long-term marital relationships remain married. Specifically, what behaviors or other factors seem to be present in such couples with sustained marital relationships? What are the respective roles of such factors as religious duty, passionate love, fear, companionate factors, and romance in the endurance and viability of the marriage? This study will seek to identify these behaviors and factors and attempt to associate them with sustained marriages between such couples. The participants for the study will be randomly selected from the population of childless heterosexual couples from different ethnic origins living in America whose marriages have had lasted for at least 25 years.  25 years has been selected as the period of judgment.

Pursing Criminal Justice - Law Enforcement Essay - 1

Pursing Criminal Justice - Law Enforcement - Essay Example Several strict regulations in law enforcement were introduced because of which similar terrorist attacks could be avoided after 2001. Though law enforcement brought numerous positive changes, it also resulted in inconvenience to public in terms of free movement and employment and government could successfully handled the public resistance. In future, the big challenges for law enforcement would be in the form of terrorism, regionalism and drug trafficking. The coordination of US Police department with the law enforcement agencies of other nations like Mexico and Columbia would certainly help in reducing the crime rate including drug trafficking. It is predicted that the law enforcement would be highly flexible and dynamic in nature for successfully handing these challenges. Key words : law enforcement, criminal justice, terrorism, drug trafficking a. What is your definition of justice as it relates to the law enforcement? Explain the origins of law enforcement. Discuss how you intend to promote your definition of justice in your intended criminal justice career. Equal treatment of persons in the circumstances of unfair means is most important for any welfare society. Justice is needed to be provided to the people when they are subjected to ill treatment in the society. Hence, justice can be defined as any type of practice which helps the people to get reasonable compensation or treatment so that fair means of utilities and services would be guaranteed. In other words, justice means the process of facilitating and doing right things (Sandel, 2009). This holds more relevance when criminal acts are committed in the society. We regularly come across different incidents in the world related to forceful killings, rape, sabotage and drug trafficking etc. and the persons who are affected due to this must be provided with the sufficient justice and at he same time, the other people in the society should be provided with right and safe environment for dignified way of li fe. The justice can be provided by various measures like framing rules in the form of legislation, enforcing the same through police or any other parallel law control system and through thorough judicial review and through corrections in the form jail reforms (Mays and Ruddell, 2007). In other words, the justice can be ensured only by establishing these three different components of criminal justice system i.e. law enforcement through police, law adjudication through courts and corrections in the form of jails and parole (Siegel and Senna, 2007). Since time immemorial, the people were subjected through various criminal justice procedures and irrespective of the region, the Kings used to appoint some specific experienced noble persons for providing the justice based on case to case. One common principle in all these types of criminal justice procedures is to apply the element of truth finding and analysis after going through all the related parties of the incident and delivering judg ment in favor of the affected persons or victims. While delivering the judgment, the emphasis was always given to create an element of fear among other people that they would be punished strictly if indulged in illegal activities and this helped the society to find less criminal rate. This has given foundation for the modern courts and their legal principles through out the world. At the same time, in some of the cases based on the merit, the opportunity was

BIM and Construction management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

BIM and Construction management - Assignment Example The models created through BIM can be accessed by all concerned sides in the construction process for any adjustments or decision making in regard to how the construction work is to continue, how the building or facility will be used and if need be how demolition for the same will be done. It goes beyond the 2 dimensional representations of buildings on paper as plans, sections and elevations; and gives information about a building in three dimensions in addition to other details like light analysis, building components and their properties, quantities of building including excavation and spatial relationships (Kymmell, 2008). In order for information developed through this process to be useful, a BIM manager is contracted to advice contractors at every critical stage of a building life cycle. The roles of the BIM manager majorly revolve around collecting information on the whole process of construction and determine whether the work was accurately predicted in the BIM and points out what was not accurately presented in the models created. He is consulted in cases where actions or decisions contrary to what is on the models are advisable in order for the construction work to be completed in a manner that will not compromise the quality of a premise. Engineers or whoever is assigned the role of managing projects embrace BIM as it gives them many opportunities of illustrating to the funders of a project on the various options of doing work and the various implications for each alternative to help customers easily make decisions they are best comfortable with in regard to their financial capabilities. In addition through BIM the project managers are able to make accurate financial requisitions periodically as required. This is very helpful for subcontractors, or when finance is controlled from a central unit to avoid overspending. When a project adopts BIM in their work, there are so many benefits which come with it. Since the process emphasizes on information sha ring it becomes easier for managers to track the progress of the work as documented from time to time. The use of BIM helps mangers to make appropriate adjustments while the work is ongoing as it is able to reveal weakness within the structure that can make the building not to last for long. Since the purpose for which a building is constructed is the basis for determining accurately the various features in the building suitable for that purpose, it is possible to be able to design a structure that is ideal for maximum performance for the intended purpose. It is easy to control expenditure of resources throughout the project cycle since everything is budgeted for in advance and money for that particular purpose released in a timely manner for easy accountability. Any changes which contractors and subcontractors might consider necessary must be calculated and its appropriateness determined. Some of these measures, especially those being made in enhancing stability and durability of a building, are usually detected early and budgeted for through BIM. Therefore, any new requests for additional facilities must be weighted carefully because it is possible that what is

Concept of surface area of a cube Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Concept of surface area of a cube - Essay Example When the bottom is joined to the sides, all four edges can be glued at the same time. That is, the bottom counts as one seam. After the bottom and sides are assembled, the top will be attached. Part 1 - The prerequisite skills necessary to complete this problem; Guiding the students so that they can calculate how many sheets of plywood must be used and determine how many solid seams must be made The prerequisites for this task include recognition of the cube and knowledge of its properties, and the concept of surface area in general. This in turn expects that the students have previously dealt with the concept of the square and flat area in earlier classes so that they can now grasp the concept of the surface area of the cube. The skills required are the ability to measure in feet, derive formulae, and perform simple addition and multiplication calculations related to working out areas, the time taken to complete a project, and the cost of materials. Besides this is the simple ability to compare quantities required at the final stage. They must also be familiar with the concept of 3 dimensions as found in objects around us; that there is a third measure of depth/height besides length and breadth of two dimensional objects and drawings. And, appreciate how we can use (apparently) two-dimensional materials (the plywood sheets) to construct three-dimensional objects (the cube shaped bin). Students should recognize that the number of pieces that need to be cut corresponds to the six faces of the cube. To account for the thickness of the sheets and allow the seams of edges to be made, four of these parts will have shorter dimensions than the 3 ft. x 3 ft. dimensions of the first two parts (from the first sheet for the top and bottom sides). Given the information contained in part 2 of the notes, the students should be aware how only 5 seams need to be made. The cube has 12 edges in total and two meet to form a seam except that in some cases more

Tourism Economics Essay Example for Free

Tourism Economics Essay Overview According to Dr. Warren H. Lieberman (1993), yield management or revenue management is the practice of maximizing profits from the sale of perishable assets by controlling price and inventory and improving service.   Sheryl E. Kimes of Cornell University, in turn, defines yield management as the control of customer demand through the use of variable pricing and capacity management to enhance profitability.   Finally, Kevin Donaghy, et. al. put forward in 1995 that yield management   is a revenue maximization technique which aims to increase net yield through the predicted allocation of available capacity to predetermined market segments at optimum price. Yield management (YM) has become widely accepted and used by capacity-constrained hospitality and tourism organizations in order to achieve optimum resource utilization and ensure wealth maximization.   Ã‚  For the use of this paper, we shall focus on the hotel industry. Yield Management Hotels Yield management in hotels, as Lieberman (1993) concisely puts, is the use of   information, historical and current, in combination with policy supports, procedural supports, and statistical models, to enhance a hotels ability to carry out a number of common business practices and thereby increase both its revenues and its customer-service capabilities.[1] Hotel capacity is not part of the institution’s inventory, and thus continuous operation without occupancy translates to overhead and opportunity costs.   The yield management approach allows the management to avoid these costs by providing a rational and systematic framework for management decisions.   Huyton et al. (1997) argues that the hospitality and tourism industries of the 90s are best remembered for their adaptation and refinement of yield management systems. Preconditions of YM Kimes (1997) identifies five preconditions for the successful application of YM.   These are: Fixed capacity Hotels are capacity-constrained, i.e., their main products or goods cannot be classified in their inventory. These products or goods are perishable. Capacity can be changed by increasing the number of rooms, for instance, but this entails significant capital outlay, which is discussed next. High fixed costs Adding incremental capacity to a hotel is very costly and time-consuming.   These resource constraints (fund allocation process, planning and construction time, etc.) lead to the fact that capacity cannot be adjusted rapidly. Low variable costs The cost that hotels incur by booking a guest in a room that would otherwise be vacant is classified as a low variable cost. Time-varied demand Due to high fixed costs, hotels cannot match their capacity easily to correspond to peaks and troughs in demand.   Donaghy, et al. (1995), bolstering Kime’s explanation, argues that hotels can benefit during demand fluctuations or variations.   They can do this by controlling capacity when demand is high and relaxing that control when demand is low. Reservation systems are very beneficial in efficient demand management as products and goods are allocated prior to consumption. Similarity of Inventory Units As a general rule, YM systems operate in a situation where inventory units are similar.   Hotel rooms are basically similar. Ingredients of YM Differential pricing is one of the foremost ingredients of YM.   As a prerequisite, hotels must be able divide their customer base into distinct market segments, in order to apply the principles of differential pricing. A manager will be more confident in his/her decisions regarding the acceptance or denial of reservations when he/she is familiar with their organization’s booking and demand patterns. A sound forecasting system for peaks and troughs in demand, based on good knowledge of sales and booking data is essential in the manager’s task of effectively aligning supply and demand.   YM, according to Kimes (1997), is essentially a form of price discrimination[2]. The YM systems being used by hotels and airlines rely on opening and closing rate bands. Logically, periods of low demand prompt the service operator to offer discount prices. Conversely, periods of high demand will normally see the closing off of these discounts.   Ã‚  Offering multiple rates, on a different note, may enable the manager to align price, product and buyer in a profitable manner achieve a greater net yield and therefore. Another essential YM ingredient is overbooking. Overbooking levels are systematically set using historical data, present developments, and forecasted activities that are directly or indirectly related to the business operation of the hotel. As a final ingredient in a good YM system, an effective management information system should be present to handle the substantial amount of information needed for the construction of effective management decisions. YM approaches in the hotel industry Donaghy et al. (1995) discussed three basic YM approaches to the hotel industry in consonance with Kimes.   These are: Rate Controls Under this approach, there are two methods being practiced.   The threshold curve approach or the control chart method deals with opening and closing rate classes. This method makes use of the booking curve as a base. The bid price system is the second method, and it is based upon algorithms.   Put simply, it is a shadow process of the capacity constraint. Availability controls The availability controls approach is based upon the guests’ minimum and maximum lengths of stay.   It isolates arrivals, which, in turn, are managed by manual and/or computerized systems. Allocation approaches Originally, this approach made use of the expected marginal seat revenue (EMSR).   He further explains that it allows the allocation of inventory to price in order to develop booking limits for different categories[3] (Donaghy et al., 1995).   Bedrooms can be booked at the maximum rate as long as they are available.   However, they but may be restricted at lower discounted prices.   Revenue maximization for a given demand and capacity constraint is the focus of this approach.   Donaghy et al., quoting Yeoman and Ingold (1997), proposed an equation for yield management: Yield management : a chaos paradigm x rationale / normative decision model = logical incrementalism. The equation simply means that in an economic and political environment influenced by chaos theory, YM contributes to better decision-making processes. Importance of YM in the Hotel Industry The analysis of actual costs the factor that ultimately influences profitability is a requirement of yield management in its capacity management.   Following a logical pattern, decisions are more likely to generate more efficient yield-focused capacity management methods when they take account of and are based on cost of sales. Of course, the importance of forecasted demand, booking demand patterns and overall historical data cannot be undermined.   This is the main reason why yield is a crucial factor in adding `value to managing capacity. The yield segmentation process (YSP) is one such method that accomplishes this.   By incorporating incurred costs, YSP ultimately adds value to managing capacity.   Cross (1997) identifies segmentation as one of the steps in yield management. The YSP, put simply, aims to determine how much a customer is willing to pay.   By determining accommodation value of targeted audiences, YSP becomes instrumental in identifying a hotel’s target consumers for a given time period. A hotel manager derives answers from the YSP provides using a comprehensive segmentation of market segments, existing and potential. Because of this, practitioners are provided with reliable information and are therefore better-equipped for decision-making, specifically in the following aspects: price structures, preferable target markets (within the context of yield value), potential profit/yield per market segment, actual costs of supporting each market segment and decision-making mechanisms for targeting new market segments. Hoteliers, not unlike most sectors of hospitality industry already analyze their market in their own ways, varying in degree or method of analysis. A manager’s capacity-management methods are not greatly modified when a yield-focused approach is incorporated.   Their analysis of decision factors are enhanced and therefore value is added through:   Delivery products or services that dynamically meets the needs and wants of clearly defined market segments   Shift in increased revenue results and focus from capacity utilization maximization (translating to overall revenue) for every segment to profit maximization within each segment. A comprehensive market segmentation performed by a team qualified hotel personnel is required to achieve these aims.   This team should utilize all resources and make use of all the expertise found in the organization. To illustrate, this requires participation from the hotel’s various departments: sales and marketing, rooms inventory, front desk, finance, accounting, conference and banqueting, and of course, the senior management. Based on the pooling of expertise from the said departments, the management is supplied with essential data on which sound decisions would be based. Yield management can be applied to a wide array of business processes. Successful integration and application will result in higher satisfaction levels for customers, and consequently greater revenues for the hotel. However, substandard integration and application will probably lead to lower customer satisfaction levels and loss of revenue and profit. It is not enough merely to say that a hotel practices yield management. The real question to be addressed is â€Å"how is yield management being practiced?† By addressing this, the hotel will be able to find out what it could do better.   Furthermore, the hotel, through experience and refinement, will be able to identify the additional benefits it could derive from yield management. A successful yield management program continuously evolves according to the needs of the organization using it. Various tools and performance measures have been designed to assist hotels to quantify the benefit streams arising from specific yield-management actions. It must be stressed that yield management is not a computer system.   Moreover, on a more simple definition, it is not a set of mathematical techniques.   Ã‚  To reiterate, yield management is a method or approach to increase revenues and improve service by being agile, dynamic, and responsive to market demand. It is a way of doing business.   It is no question that computer-based tools are very instrumental in achieving higher levels of success for a yield-management program. In this age, the gamut of yield management’s benefits cannot be achieved without the aid of technology-based tools.     These tools facilitate several intrinsic processes of hotel business: demand forecasting, reservation cancellation, and recording/analysis of no-show activity.   This gives the hotelier better foundation on which to base decisions such as: Determining when to restrict discounts Estimating the displaced revenue of transient demand Recommending and controll reservation availability based on particular lengths of stay and rate Applying YM methods appropriately, a hotel can achieve better effectiveness in its business operations.   The results include the following:   Effective pricing or hotel rate structure Prudent limitations on the number of reservations for each room during any time frame, founded on the expected incremental profitability of each reservation. High adaptability of reservation policies leading to well-informed decisions on inventory-control actions Effective and profitable negotiations for volume discounts High responsiveness in providing guests/customers with the product or service they want or may want, coupled with profitable complementation of other hotel services/facilities. A generally healthier revenue generation from current and potential businesses Appropriate empowerment of reservation agents, thus making them more effective business arms. Limitations of YM in the Hotel Industry After establishing the applicability and approaches of YM in the hotel industry, we now discuss the arguments for YM’s limitations as compared to the applicability to the industry that pioneered the use of YM – the airline industry. Multiple night stays An airline seat’s use is limited to a day and a night. Hotel rooms, on the other hand, are booked on an entirely different basis. Hotel guests may arrive on off-peak or low-rate days and stay multiple nights, possibly through some peak or high-rate days. This situation translates to a dilemma regarding the appropriate rate for each guest. Multiplier effect A hotel’s accommodation is but one of the revenue-generating functions of the establishments.   Restaurants, health and wellness facilities, banquets, conference halls, and leisure facilities contribute significantly to the hotel’s profitable operations.   A hotelier is thus prudent to mind all the establishment’s revenue-generating functions and departments and ensure that they become complementary to each other. Lack of a distinct rate structure Hotels seldom have rate restrictions that airlines impose on their passengers. To illustrate, travelers who have paid regular rates are hindered from some benefits appropriated to those passengers who have availed of leisure rates. Decentralization of information Kimes (1997) states that hotel bedrooms in group hotels are often booked at rates below expected â€Å"because the central reservation system is not linked in the unit hotels property management system†. Conclusion The effectiveness of a yield management system is based on the depth of the understanding of the necessary ingredients, preconditions, limitations and decision-making variables of an industry. Flexibility and system adherence are indispensible requirements of any proposed system.   With these conditions in mind, the yield management system is optimized managing capacity profitability. Profit enhancement is the bottom line for YM. In hotel industries, this translates directly to the simultaneous improvement of occupancy and rate. Focusing on either one as a separate goal only   optimizes capacity utilization.   Capacity utilization optimization does not necessarily optimize yield. Yield management systems, applied correctly, can manage capacity profitably in hotels and most tourism and hospitality industries, if not all. Capacity management and yield management must not be confused with each other.   Capacity management refers to the efficient use of available space with the fundamental aim of improving overall revenue.   YM, in turn, also strives for the efficient use of available capacity.   However, its focus is on profit optimization rather than revenue optimization. Yield management is not a panacea for a hotel’s ailing business operations.   It is not a way of luring customers to pay higher rates or for them to simply spend more while in the hotel.   It is a continuously evolving process that, if applied correctly, can increase a hotels revenues and at the same time, be responsive to its market’s demands, enabling it to deliver effectively the goods and services best suited to the wants and needs of its customers.   How well yield management works for a hotel depends on how well the program is designed and implemented. BIBLIOGRAPHY   Belobaba, Peter. â€Å"Application of a probabilistic decision model to airline seat inventory control†. In Operations Research, 37:2. 183-197. 1989 Cross, Robert. Revenue Management.   New York: Broadway Books. 1997 Donaghy, Kevin. and McMahon, Una. â€Å"Managing Yield: A Marketing Perspective†. In Journal of Vacation Marketing, 2:1, 655-662. 1995 Donaghy, Kevin, McMahon, Una and McDowell, D. â€Å"Yield Management: An Overview†. In International Journal of Hospitality Management, 14:2, pp. 139-150. 1995 Donaghy, Kevin, McMahon-Beattie, Una., Yeoman, Ian. And Ingold, Anthony.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Realism of Yield Management†. In Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research 1:4. 187-195. 1998 Huyton, Jeremy, Evans, P, and Ingold, Anthony.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The legal and moral issue surrounding the practice of YM, Viewpoint†. In International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 9: 2,3. 84-87. 1997. Kimes, Sheryl. â€Å"The Basics of Yield Management†. In Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 30:3. 14-19. 1989 Kimes, Sheryl. â€Å"Yield Management: An Overview†. In Yield Management, Strategies for the Service Industries. (Eds) Yeoman, Ian and Ingold Anthony., London: Cassell. 3-11. 1997 Kimes, Sheryl.   â€Å"The Strategic Levers of Yield Management†. In Journal of Service Research, 1:2, 156-166. 1998 Lee-Ross, Darren. â€Å"Yield management in hospitality SMEs†. In International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 9:2,3. 66-69. 1997 Lieberman, Warren.H. â€Å"Debunking the Myths of Yield Management†. In Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 34:1,   34-44. 1993 Orkin, Eric. â€Å"Boosting our bottomline with yield management†. In Cornell Hotel and RestaurantAdministration Quarterly. 28: 4,.52-56. 1988 Orkin, Eric. â€Å"Yield management makes forecasting fact not fiction†. In Hotel and Motel Management, August 15, 112-118. 1988 Sieburgh, Jules. â€Å"Yield Management at Work in the Royal Sonesta†. In Lodging Hospitality, October issue, 235-237. 1988 Yeoman, Ian and Ingold, Anthony.   Ã¢â‚¬ Decision-making†, In Yeoman, Ian and Ingold, Anthony (Eds) In Yield Management: Strategies for the Service Industries. 101-119. London: Cassell. 1997 [1] Warren Lieberman. â€Å"Debunking the Myths of Yield Management†. In Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 34:1,   34-44. 1993 [2] Sheryl Kimes. â€Å"Yield Management: An Overview†. In Yield Management, Strategies for the Service Industries. Yeoman, Ian and Ingold Anthony (eds). London: Cassell. 3-11. 1997 [3] Kevin Donaghy and Una McMahon. â€Å"Yield Management: An Overview†. In International Journal of Hospitality Management, 14:2, pp. 139-150. 1995

State Bank of Patiala Analysis

State Bank of Patiala Analysis State Bank of Patiala is a public sector bank in India with its headquarters at Patiala, a city in the state of Punjab. The bank is an associate of the State Bank Group and offers core banking solutions to its customers. State Bank of Patiala (SBP) was established in 1917 by the king of the then princely state of Patiala. It was then called Patiala State Bank. After independence in 1947, the bank became a subsidiary of the state government of Punjab. In 1960, it became an associate bank of the State Bank Group. With the nationalization of the State Bank Group in 1969, SBOP became a public sector bank. The State Bank of Patiala has identified specialized segments and designed varied products to meet the needs of such segments. The segments are for the purposes are as follow: Personal banking Agriculture rural banking NRI banking SME corporate banking Government banking Internet banking Mobile banking The bank has now added a golden chapter to its history by fully networking all its branches on Core Banking Solutions on 08.08.2005 and become the first fully networked Public Sector Bank in the country. Bank distribute through As far as the distribution channel of products and services of the bank is concerned, I have come to know that state bank of Patiala has mostly indirect channels of distribution of its products and services but direct channels also to some extent. The bank is having various tie ups with many companies for the distribution of its products. If the loan section is taken bank maximum use its indirect channel for the distribution of the products which are as follow:- Scheme for Financing of Commercial Vehicles under Tie-up with:- Ashok Leyland Limited Eicher Motors Limited Force Motors Limited Tata Motors Limited Maruti udhyog ltd. Mahindra motors Scheme for finance of Motor Cycles and Scooters under Tie-up with:- Hero Honda Motors Limited: Scheme for extending facilities to Franchisee outlets in the form of Bank Guarantee/Term Loan. Monte Carlo Cotton County Bank is also under the Tata nano special financing scheme with the Tata motors. Moreover the bank is in the MOU for loan to the students of the Frankfinn Aviation Services Ltd. which will ensure 100 per cent financing of the tuition fee of its students for the one-year courses in aviation crew and hospitality and travel industry. Moreover for the NRI banking bank is having again indirect distribution channel and having various tie ups with: Thomas cook money transfer Wall Street money exchange Western union money transfer SBOP has also various tie ups with foreign banks for the transfer of funds, currency etc  . The SBOP also provides the various services like insurance, mutual funds etc. and for its distribution the bank is having SBI- life, oriental insurance ltd, SBI- mutual funds SBI- card etc. As far as direct channels are concerned bank used the internet banking and mobile banking for its distribution of the products. Why SBOP use indirect channel so Now the next thing arises that why SBOP mostly use the indirect channel. As it is known that there are mainly two channels of marketing which are: Direct Channel A direct distribution channel is where a company sells their products direct to consumers. Indirect Channel The indirect channel is used by companies who do not sell their goods directly to consumers. But the direct channel has one major drawback i.e. characteristically present in conventional retailing which means it doesnt allow any options. Moreover, although direct selling saves channel costs, commission paid to as high as 30-35% of retail price. Also recruiting training motivating and retaining good sale people is difficult and expensive task. For direct selling face-to-face interaction must be capable of producing a significant value addition to the consumer, compared to be purchasing from retail shop. Finally channel becomes fail when circumstances changes. So in order to overcome from all these problems bank mostly uses the indirect channels of distribution. Moreover Suppliers and manufacturers typically use indirect channels because they exist early in the supply chain. Companies choose the indirect channel best suited for their product to obtain the best market share; it also allows them to focus on producing their goods. So in nutshell it would be suggested to bank that the bank should try to use direct channels in more terms because while direct channels were not popular many years ago, the Internet has greatly increased the use of direct channels. Additionally, companies needing to cut costs may use direct channels to avoid middlemen markups on their products. Depending on the industry and product, direct distribution channels have become more prevalent due to the Internet. Like in present scenario everyone use the internet for any sort of information so now the days banks are concentrating more upon direct channels rather to distribute indirectly. SBOP is also doing the same.

Impact of Dumping and Agricultural Subsidies on Developing Countries

Impact of Dumping and Agricultural Subsidies on Developing Countries The term subsidy is often used in the economic context, but the concept behind it fails to have been defined appropriately for all practical purposes. The term is most often used synonymously with governmental transfer of money to an entity in the private sector, or it may refer to the provision of a good or service at a price below what a private entity would otherwise have had to pay for it. Moreover, it may also refer to various government policies that may favorably affect the competitive position of private entities, in the form of procurement policies or programs to educate workers. Ambiguity continues to prevail with respect to the aforementioned measures as subsidies in the meaningful sense of the term.  [1]   Governments engage in a wide range of tax and expenditure policies that impose costs and confer benefits on entities belonging to the private sector. To an economist, perhaps a natural phenomenon for identifying subsidization is a hypothetical market equilibrium without governmental activity. The classic economic models of general competitive equilibrium, for example, are entirely decentralized and embody no government sector.  [2]  The government makes an entry by way of taxation and expenditure policies, this alters equilibrium prices and output. Activities for which the net returns are reduced are discouraged to some degree, and those activities are then subject to be taxed. Activities for which the net returns are enhanced will be encouraged to a degree, and they may be said to be subsidized. The difficulty with this concept of subsidization is that it is exceedingly difficult to apply as a practical matter. The hypothetical market equilibrium without government cannot be observed, and indeed is not clear that the concept is coherent. Implicit in the classic general equilibrium models is a capacity for actors to engage in transactions, yet it is difficult to see how such a capacity can arise in a large economy without a government to create property rights. Further, the deviations from any benchmark equilibrium that result from government activity are exceedingly complex. Governments engage in a wide variety of taxation practice, not only are the number of tax instruments large in number, but the incidence of the various taxes is often quite uncertain. Governments also engage in innumerable regulatory programs that impose costs on private entities of various sorts; in the form of occupational health and safety programs, environmental quality programs, programs to transfer resources to certain disadvantaged groups, and untold others. Finally, government expenditure programs provide vast benefits to private sector entities in direct and indirect ways, including public education, highways, research and development funding, low cost insurance, fire and security services, a legal system, and on and on. Against this backdrop, it is surely impossible in practice to ascertain the precise impact of governmental activity on any entity according to the sort of benchmark put forth above. The simplest alternative is to look at each government program in isolation, and to ignore the question of whether any benefits conferred may be offset by costs in another form. If a particular program confers benefits on a private entity, a subsidy is declared to exist without further inquiry. Further it is plausible to assume that generally applicable tax, expenditure and regulatory policies affect most enterprises almost in equal standards and thus do not confer any form of subsidy. Programs of narrow applicability that target benefits at particular industries, by contrast, might be assumed to confer benefits that encourage production in that industry. To illustrate, a government might make an investment tax credit available to all industries that use durable goods, on the premise that all industries benefit about equally and that any affects on international competitiveness wash out through exchange rates, such a program might be ignored for purposes of identifying subsidies. By contrast, if the automobile industry is the beneficiary of a special tax credit program for investment in automobile manufacturing, a subsidy might be found as to that industry. Yet another alternative is to focus on the impact of government on private activities relative to the impact of other governments on similarly situated entities elsewhere. In the international context, one might look for programs that seem to confer particularly large benefits on particular entities relative to the benefits that governments confer on similar entities in other countries. The presumption would be that most governments tax and regulate in somewhat similar fashion, resulting in similar effects on the competitive position of most private entities only when a program for a particular group of private entities stands out as especially generous relative to such other programs would a subsidy be present. Thus, for example, if most governments provide a certain range of benefits to their farmers, those programs might be presumed to have a cancelation affect in international trade more or less, and no subsidy would be found. Each of these alternatives have obvious deficiencies. The first has the virtue of simplicity, but its essential failing has been noted above by ignoring the offsetting costs imposed by government on private actors it raises a great danger that subsidization will be found where a private entity has not been meaningfully advantaged by government programs. Indeed, because so many government programs are funded out of general revenues, a narrow focus on particular government expenditure programs without any offset for various forms of taxation would lead to the conclusion that there is rampant subsidization. The second alternative deals with the insuperable complexities of calculating the net impact of national governments on domestic industries which are avoided by assuming that generally applicable programs have a neutral impact while targeted programs do not. But there is no reason to believe that this assumption is correct. Many broadly applicable programs have widely disparate effects on different industries. The third alternative brings out another dimension, and treats subsidization as an alteration in the competitive position of private entities relative to similar entities elsewhere. This shift in emphasis perhaps captures the notion that subsidization involves tilting the playing field, and might be defended on that basis. This assumption has inherent practical problems the presumption that most governments tax and regulate similarly with respect to background factors that affect the competitive position of private entities is highly suspect, and the mere fact that a particular type of program exists in one country and not another, or is more generous in one country than in another, is at best a weak marker for a program that shifts the competitive balance overall. In sum, it is far easier to conceptualize a subsidy in simple economic models that it is to identify a subsidy in practice. Any administrative rule for determining whether a particular government program is in relation to subsidy or not will result in serious errors of over-inclusion and under-inclusion. The OECD, which estimates agricultural subsidies, uses a broad definition that includes any government policy that distorts the market such that prices do not reflect marginal costs. So a tariff on imports, which taxes consumers by raising the price of imported agricultural products to benefit producers, is a subsidy, just like a direct payment to a farmer. That however is not the common understanding of a subsidy. Their definition is narrower, referring only to government payments that allow prices to remain below marginal costs. Some are direct, such as payments to farmers; others are indirect, such as government support for irrigation infrastructure, which allows producers to exclude that cost from their prices. The OECDs Producer Support Estimate (herein after PSE) is the most widely used estimate of the agricultural subsidies provided to the farmers on the developed countries. The PSE has been challenged by the developed nations on the grounds that the two-thirds of the estimate is comprised of not the direct support provided to the farmers but rather what is referred to as the non-subsidy support. This component of the PSE includes the market price support which is essentially the tariffs, price support and quotas. Despite the fact that none of these are subsidies per se yet he OECD figure tries to calculate the dollar estimate of this figure and incorporate it in the PSE.  [3]   Dumping An Overview In economics, dumping can refer to any form of predatory pricing, and is by most definitions a form of price discrimination. However, the word is now generally used only in the context of international trade law, where dumping is defined as the act of a manufacturer in one country exporting a product to another country at what may be perceived as an unreasonably low price, usually meaning below the costs of production. The term has a negative connotation, but advocates that free markets see dumping as beneficial for consumers. When these subsidized goods are exported to foreign markets it can be referred to as dumping.  [4]   More than 40 members of the World Trade Organization (herein after WTO) are now active users of antidumping policy, and developing countries are the newest and most frequent users. However many developing countries have started using antidumping to limit imports, thereby having given up other forms of flexibility in trade policy by adopting WTO disciplines and agreeing to bind their tariffs. Despite antidumping policys escalating use by developing countries, relatively little is known about which industries within developing countries are using antidumping and how they are using it. Under the WTO Antidumping Agreement, any member that uses the policy must create an administrative procedure to investigate demands for antidumping protection. Firms in an industry that seek this form of import protection must overcome the organizational challenges of free riding in order to initiate and successfully pursue an antidumping legal proceeding. Before a government can impose a definitive antidumping import restriction, the Agreement also requires that its administrating authority solicit and collect substantial economic evidence to confirm that market conditions and behavior of foreign exporters satisfy technical, WTO mandated legal criteria. Nevertheless, given that antidumping has become many WTO member governments protectionist instrument, the resulting pattern of antidumping import protection across industries may be an increasingly important indicator of these countries overall patterns of import protection. While the four historical developed-country users of antidumping the US, EU, Canada and Australia have continued to be active users under the WTO, they are no longer the dominant users as they were during the prior decade (1985-1994) under the GATT regime. A sizable share of the global use of antidumping, at least as measured by the frequency of initiated cases and imposed measures, is now made up of new user developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Turkey and Venezuela, the nine developing countries forming the sample of our formal empirical investigation.  [5]   WTO and the Agreement on Agriculture An attempt to regulate the protection afforded to the farmers in the developed countries and the tariff rates in the developing countries through the Agreement on Agriculture which is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (herein after GATT), and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO on January 1, 1995. This AoA is based on three concepts or pillars which are domestic support, market access and export subsidies. However not much has changed since the AoA was implemented. The document hinged precariously on eliminating agriculture subsidies as a basic step in getting the fiscal house in order. Knowing well that any reduction in subsidies would be politically suicidal, the developed countries managed to not only maintain the level of subsidies but in fact succeeded in increasing it manifold. At the same time, they continue to arm-twist the developing countries to reduce tariffs and open up markets for farm goods from the industrialized countries. As already stated, the developed nations often believe that the PSE is not an accurate indicator of the amount of the protection afforded by them and have repeatedly challenged this statistic. In this paper the researcher will analyze the subsidies granted to the agricultural sector in the developed nations, its impact on the developing nations and the role played by the WTO in negotiations between these two blocs. C h a p t e r 1 : A g r i c u l t u r a l S u b s i d i e s a n d D u m p i ng in t h e D e v e l o p e d N a t i o n s Widespread dumping by the Developed Nations: The WTO Antidumping Agreement and the Theory of Endogenous Trade Policy January 1, 2005 marked the 10-year anniversary of the World Trade Organizations Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). When governments launched the agreement, they hailed it as a victory for farmers around the world: farmers were to benefit from more trade, greater access to markets and higher prices. A decade later, there is unquestionably more trade in agricultural products. However, higher and fair prices for farmers seem further away than ever. It is hard to make the case that the Agreement on Agriculture has done anything to benefit farmers anywhere in the world. Since the WTOs inception, widespread agricultural dumping, the selling of products at below their cost of production, by global agribusiness companies based in the United States and European Union has wreaked havoc on global agricultural markets. Hit hardest are the farmers in the developing and the least devel oped nations who have been forced to go out of business because of these policies. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has documented export dumping from U.S.-based multinational corporations onto world agricultural markets for the last 14 years. The U.S. is one of the worlds largest sources of dumped agricultural commodities. The latest update shows that the US still undertakes large scale dumping the five most commonly exported products namely; wheat, soybean, corn, cotton and rice. Though the statistic shows that the amount of dumping has gone down as compared to the previous statistic but this is perceived to be largely as a result of the reduced supply because of bad weather and pest infestation than as a change in policy.  [6]   The proliferation of WTO-authorized antidumping laws and the global increase in use of this form of administered import protection has been widely recognized (Miranda, Torres and Ruiz 1998; Prusa, 2001; Zanardi, 2004). While antidumping was once a policy instrument used primarily by the US, Canada, EU and Australia, it is now used actively by over 40 WTO member countries. To develop a theoretical motivation for our empirical analysis of the determinants of antidumping use by industries in developing countries, we proceed in two steps. In the next section we describe the WTO Antidumping Agreement, which sets out the general rules for national administration of antidumping law as well as the technical evidence necessary for a government to justify imposition of any new antidumping measure. Given the political-economic environment created by the WTO Antidumping Agreement, in section we use the theory of endogenous trade policy to generate additional testable predictions for the economet ric analysis. The WTOs evidentiary requirements for national use of antidumping Since the 1947 GATT, the rules of the international trading system have authorized countries to establish national antidumping statutes and to implement antidumping trade restrictions.  [7]  During the Kennedy and Tokyo Rounds in the 1960s and 1970s, negotiators attempted to put more structure on the GATT antidumping rules, but countries adopted the resulting Antidumping Codes only on a plurilateral basis. The 1995 inception of the WTO and its Antidumping Agreement (WTO, 1995) provided more detailed guidance for countries to implement and administer antidumping laws.  [8]  First, because the Antidumping Agreement was part of the Single Undertaking, it established a common set of basic rules that would apply to all WTO members and be subject to the enforcement provisions of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU).  [9]  Second, relative to the GATT, the WTO Antidumping Agreement did impose more structure on the evidentiary requirements for a government to implement a new antidumping measure, although those requirements still allow for substantial government discretion and are at best questionable from the perspective of economic welfare. Under the Antidumping Agreement, a national government must undertake an investigation and consider substantial economic evidence before it can impose a definitive antidumping measure that restricts imports. The investigating authority is instructed to consider a number of factors when making its decision, but most critical among them are whether two important legal criteria have been met: that a domestic industry suffers material injury and that this injury is the result of dumped imports. The domestic industry provides evidence of dumping to the national governments antidumping authority by showing that prices of competing products sold by foreign exporters in the domestic market were lower than the normal value of the product (WTO, 1995; Article 2.1). The national government authority has substantial discretion in calculating the normal value benchmark with which to compare the export price. The benchmark can be determined by any of three methods: i) the price for sales of the same good in the exporters home market, ii) the price for export sales of the same good in a third market, or iii) a constructed measure of the exporters average cost.  [10]   Dumping in the United states: Dumping by U.S.-based corporations is possible because commodity production is badly managed. The 1996 and 2002 U.S. Farm Bills have produced a vast structural, price-depressing oversupply of most major agricultural commodities. This oversupply has driven prices down. Both the 1996 and 2002 Farm Bills were driven by efforts to make them compliant with WTO rules. The result has been the institutionalization of agricultural dumping by U.S. farm policy. U.S. farm subsidies are frequently blamed for agricultural dumping, yet they are only a symptom of a much deeper market failure. The sharp increases in agricultural dumping in the U.S. can be traced to the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, which stripped away already weakened programs that were designed to manage supply. These supply management programs helped to balance supply with demand, ensuring a fair return to farmers from the marketplace. The pre-1996 commodity programs in effect set a floor price that commodity b uyers had to pay farmers. Given the structural imbalance in market power between farmers and agribusiness corporations, the government traditionally intervened to ensure competitive markets and prevent anticompetitive business practices.  [11]   In 1996, the U.S. government abandoned intervention mechanisms at the behest of agribusiness lobbyists, supported by free trade economists. The result: U.S. agricultural prices went into freefall. Without the supply control programs and other interventions, commodity buyers were able to drive prices below the costs of production and leave them there. To prevent the collapse of U.S. agriculture, Congress then set up counter-cyclical payments to make up part of the losses resulting from the Farm Bill reforms. The U.S. now has very expensive farm programs that distort market signals while doing nothing to correct the deeper distortion inherent in the unbalanced market power between farmers and commodity buyers and processors.  [12]   The event of dumping in itself does not pose a major problem for the international community but what has been a constant source of concern is the widespread damage that has caused to the developing countries.  [13]  The researcher shall devote the next two chapters of this project to discuss the damage that have been caused all around the world because of dumping by the developed countries and the mechanism employed by the WTO to counter this problem and how far that has been successful. C h a p t e r 2 : T h e I m p a c t o f D u m p i n g a n d A g r i c u l t u r a l S u b s i d i e s o n D e v e l o p i n g C o u n t r i e s. Ten years after the World Trade Organization (WTO) came into existence, and some 20 years after the holy grail of economic liberalization for more open markets and less government intervention in the developing world based on the idea that economies must grow if poor people are to reap the benefits of globalization, the tragedy is that the process of economic liberalization may already have set poor communities back a generation.  [14]  No where has the impact been more severely felt than in the agricultural sector. Conventional wisdom has it that the agricultural sector is heavily subsidized in most developed nations. Whatever difficulties may arise in determining the net impact of government on industries in general, most observers seem to agree that agriculture is a net beneficiary of government largesse. It is ironic that the one sector considered to be the most subsidized is subject to the least degree of discipline on subsidies (among goods markets). As noted, both export and domestic subsidies are generally permissible under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, though subject to negotiated ceilings and some reduction over time. The absence of tight discipline on export subsidies is unfortunate for the reasons discussed at length earlier. Export subsidies are almost certainly a source of economic distortion, and indeed the agricultural sector affords a case study of how pressures for competitive subsidization have led trading nations down the road of mutually wasteful expenditures. The resistance to the elimination of domestic farm programs is likely a source of economic waste as well, for much the same reason that any form of protectionism is a source of waste. But as indicated in the discussion of protective subsidies, it is hardly clear that protection through subsidization is any worse from an economic standpoint than other forms of protection. Thus, if the political equilibrium is such that agriculture must be protected, domestic farm programs may be no more troublesome that border measures. One objection that might be tabled to the continued coexistence of domestic farm programs and protective border measures for the same commodities (assuming that protection is inevitable) is that multiple protective measures complicate trade negotiations. If country A wishes to bargain for access to the agricultural markets of country B, it is harder to evaluate the benefits of a tariff concession from country B in the face of a subsidy program that also protects farmers in country B. The added transaction costs of negotiation in the face of multiple instruments of protection can be avoided by channeling all protection into a single, transparent policy instrument-this is the essential rationale for efforts in the WTO/GATT system toward tariffication of all trade barriers. Yet, the prevalence of domestic farm programs suggests that border measures alone are inadequate to the task of achieving the anticompetitive purposes compelled by current politics. One need only look at the United States, which is a net exporter of many agricultural commodities, to realize that import restrictions may do little to ensure politically acceptable prices or rates of return to the producers of certain commodities. Thus, perhaps the best that can be done is to schedule all the protective policies, both subsidies and tariffs, and bargain over both simultaneously to achieve limits on their magnitude. This is the approach of the Agriculture Agreement, and one might reasonably hope that sequential rounds of negotiations over these protective instruments in the agricultural area will produce gradual liberalization, much as the sequence of negotiating rounds under GATT brought great reductions in the tariffs applicable elsewhere. There is also something to be said for the effort in Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement to favor subsidies that do not encourage output. To the degree that subsidies are being granted for reasons that do not relate to the correction of an externality, programs that confer financial benefits on the intended recipients without inducing an expansion of their output may create fewer distortions. The caveat, of course, relates to the fundamental problem of identifying subsidies in the first instance-an output-expanding subsidy might counteract some distortion associated with other tax and regulatory policies. But in the agriculture sector, where most observers believe that net subsidies are present at the outset, efforts to channel farm aid into programs that do not stimulate agricultural production may make good sense. Subsidies to the producers of goods and services lower the producers costs of production, other things being equal. This reduction in their costs of production can lead to an expansion of their output in two ways, depending on the nature of the subsidy. First, some subsidies depend directly on output-the subsidy program may provide a producer with $1 for each widget that it produces, for example (or $1 for each widget that it exports, the classic export subsidy discussed below). Subsidies that increase with output in this fashion are economically equivalent to a reduction in the short-run marginal costs of production for the producer that receives them. In general, producers will respond to a reduction in short-run marginal costs by lowering price. Of course, when price falls, the quantity demanded by buyers will rise and output will expand to meet the increased demand. Second, even where the amount of the subsidy is not contingent on output and does not affect short-run marginal costs of production, subsidies can affect long-run marginal costs in a way that causes additional productive capacity to come on line or to remain on line. For example, imagine an unprofitable company that is unable to cover its variable costs of production at any level of output, and would thus shut down its operations under ordinary circumstances. A subsidy to that company that is contingent on it remaining in business can avert a shut-down in operations-it must simply be enough to allow the company to cover its variable costs at some level of output. Likewise, a subsidy can induce a company to build new capacity to enter a market when the expected returns to entry absent the subsidy would not be high enough to induce entry. It is also possible, to be sure, that a subsidy will have no impact on the output of recipients. Imagine, for example, that a government simply sends a company an unexpected check for $1 million. The money is in no way contingent on the companys output, or on it remaining in business. The owners of the company will be pleased to receive this subsidy, of course, but there is no reason for them to change their operations in any way-whatever level of output was most profitable without the subsidy will also be most profitable with the subsidy. These observations suggest another important issue that must be confronted in conceptualizing subsidies. For a government program to confer a subsidy, must it encourage an increase in output by the recipient? If it does not, then it cannot tilt the playing field in a way that causes detriment to competing producers. But if this question is answered affirmatively, it becomes necessary to inquire whether the government program in question affects marginal costs in the short run, or has an effect on long-run marginal cost that is sufficient to cause capacity to remain in production when it would exit otherwise, or to enter when it would not otherwise. Such issues are not always easily resolved.  [15]   The adverse effect of Dumping: Dumping in amongst the most harmful of all price distortions; developing country agriculture, vital for food security, rural livelihoods, poverty reduction and generating foreign exchange, is crippled by the competition from major commodities sold at well below cost of production prices in world markets. The structural price depression associated with agricultural dumping and a dual effect on the agricultural structure of the developing countries. Firstly, as a result of the below cost imports the farmers are driven out of their domestic markets. If the farmers do not have access to a safety net of subsidies and credit, they have to abandon their land. When this happens, the farm economy shrinks, in turn shrinking the rural economy as a whole and sending rural people into trade-related migration. Second, developing country farmers who sell their products to exporters find their global market share undermined by the policy of a depressed global price. Th e cascading effects of dumping are felt around the world in places as far apart as Jamaica, Burkina Faso and the Philippines.  [16]   The effect of Dumping on Indian Agriculture: The liberalization of the Indian economy initiated during the early 1990s was launched with a view to accelerating agricultural growth by ending discrimination against agriculture. The idea was to turn the terms of trade in favor of agriculture through a large, real devaluation of the currency and increase in output prices of agriculture. An exponential growth was expected which was to have a significant impact on poverty reduction and thereby have a positive impact on livelihood security of hundreds